Greetings yokai fans!
Today I bring you this month’s final yokai (or pair of yokai, rather).
Up top we have kanazuchibo and down below we have okka.
These yokai are similar to the previous ones in that their names were stapled on after the fact, and nothing has ever been written to describe their appearance. They’re also not folkloric yokai, as they only exist in the world of paintings. That said, they appear in a lot of paintings! These guys pop up in almost every yokai picture scroll, and so for a pair of yokai with absolutely nothing to their names (and not even a name, technically!), they are pretty well known.
I have had many requests to paint these guys, going back years. A lot of people want to know more about them, so I never wanted to be the bearer of bad news and say that there really just isn’t much to know about them. However, it’s possible to go to some length about them even though they don’t have any stories or names.
Read on to find out more:
Kanazuchibo http://yokai.com/kanazuchibou/
金槌坊
かなづちぼう
TRANSLATION: hammer priest
ALTERNATE NAMES: daichiuchi (earth striker), ōari (giant ant), yarikechō
APPEARANCE: Kanazuchibō is an odd-looking yōkai which appears in some of the earliest picture scrolls. It is depicted in a number of different ways by different artists, but in most depictions it has long, flowing hair, big, buggy eyes, and a beak-like mouth. Some paintings portray it more bird-like, while others portray it in as a grotesque, misshapen goblin-like creature. It’s most identifying feature is the large mallet it carries. It is usually portrayed holding the mallet over its head, ready to strike another yōkai.
ORIGIN: A mallet-weilding yōkai appears in many of the earliest picture scrolls of the night parade of one hundred demons. In its oldest depictions, kanazuchibō appears with no name or description. Names like kanazuchibō and daichiuchi were added much later, during the Edo period. However no description of its behavior were ever recorded. Many artists and yōkai scholars have made guesses at its true nature.
It has been suggested that kanazuchibō may be a spirit of cowardice. His posture and his hammer evoke the proverbs “to strike a stone bridge before crossing” (meaning to be excessively careful before doing anything) and “like a hammer in the water” (meaning to always be looking at the ground and watching your step; picture a hammer in a river, with its heavy head sinking below the surface, but its wooden handle floating upright). Perhaps this is a yōkai which haunts cowards, or which turns people into cowards when it haunts them.
Kanazuchibō is also known as ōari, or giant ant. In prehistoric Japan there was a culture which built large earthen burial mounds known as kofun. It has been suggested that in the Kofun people’s religion, ants were revered as divine creatures since they build earthen mounds. As the Kofun religion died out, those creatures formerly worshiped as kami grew resentful and warped into these ant-like yōkai. While it’s an amusing story, there’s no evidence to suggest the Kofun people actually worshipped ants. This explanation was almost certainly made up by modern storytellers.
Toriyama Sekien included a version of this yōkai in his book Hyakki tsurezure bukuro. He re-imagined it as a tsukumogami born from a keyari—a hairy spear used as decoration and in parades. He named it yarikechō, or “spear hair chief.”
Okka http://yokai.com/okka/
大化
おっか
TRANSLATION: a baby-talk corruption of obake (“monster”)
ALTERNATE NAMES: akaheru, chikarakoko, gamanoke (“frog spirit”); countless others
APPEARANCE: Okka is a small, bulbous yōkai. It is usually depicted as a round, bright red creature with big eyes, two clawed feet, and a diminutive tail. There are many variations of this yokai, with minor difference in color, number of appendages, facial features, and hair.
ORIGIN: Okka appears in many of the oldest yōkai picture scrolls. Since its original name was never recorded, countless names have been used to describe this yōkai. The word okka is a baby talk variation of obake, a generic word for a ghost or monster. It fits this yōkai quite well, as okka itself has a somewhat generic and baby-like appearance. It also fits an established pattern of monsters being named in baby talk; waira, otoroshi, gagoze, and uwan are also thought to be “baby-fied” variations of scary words.
It has been suggested that okka may be a frog spirit, based on its appearance. It has also been suggested that okka is a tsukumogami, as it appears alongside other tsukumogami in paintings. Though it was never given a name or an explanation, okka has yet remained a common sight in scrolls depicting the night parade of one hundred demons. Okka is frequently depicted together with kanazuchibō; it appears to be the target of kanazuchibō’s hammer. However, their frequent pairing may be no more than a coincidence. Painters frequently copied directly from earlier yōkai scrolls, and without any description there is no way of knowing if the original painting that depicts okka being targeted by kanazuchibō was done so for a specific reason, or just because it looked amusing.